Radio Kills The mp3 Star

Radio of the Last.FM, Slacker, and Pandora variety that is.

Or so says WIRED's Blog Network:

"With smartphones becoming commoditized -- and with so many excellent music apps being designed for them -- it's becoming viable to leave your MP3 player at home and tune into the cloud."

"the next great thing in music technology will be smartphone applications that replicate the experience of listening to interactive, customized radio stations at a computer."

But, for terrestrial radio there is hope and while the article didn't speak of "old time radio" they did say this:

"...after ten or so years of moving away from programmed music, people are happy to let someone else do the work for a change. We could be moving towards a future when finding music in an online music store or file sharing network, downloading it, then sideloading it onto a portable will be come to seen as a waste of time."

Now, this should be good news, right? I could be, but not so fast. There's still that pesky issue of their content vs. ours. Let's assume that our music content stacks up to theirs, we will still need to address our commercial policies and the tedium of liner card DJ's. Will people consider coming back who largely gave up on FM radio? What would we have to do?

If we believe this article the era of DIY Radio Programming may be taking a breather. That would be a fortuitous event for an industry looking greener pastures and a way to climb out of the current doldrums (or worse).

You can read the full article here

My own personal experience:

I downloaded the Slacker app for my Blackberry Curve and it works very well--both at home using WiFi AND to my great surprise in the car on the Edge network (2G and slower than 3G). Still no easy way to get it to play through my car audio system, however.

Addtionally, the pre-programmed format channels I sampled are quite good. The free version features one spot per half hour and I even heard a jock on one of the top 40 channels. The custom stations, in which you select an artist and the system selects a library based on your selection, are also a good listen.

Take a listen for yourself and see what you think.

There's STILL no delivery system that's more convienient or easier than over the air radio--not to mention it is free (minus the spots, of course). But let's not forget convenient and easy are fleeting when you consider how fast tech moves and our competitors are already free or close to it.

Happy Anniversary

It was 10 years ago the first mp3 player was released by a tiny Korean company. Soon to be followed by countless others, some of which you may be familiar with. Of course, this invention ushered in a new era in portable on-demand music that changed everything! (not to minimize broadband speed and an infinite amount of content--free and otherwise on the 'net)

From Engadget:

Odds are, you take your iPod or Zune for granted. You probably don't think about the crazy technological advancements we've made, but take a ten-year look back at the world's first MP3 player -- the MPMan F10 -- and you'll get a sense of just how far we've come. Manufactured by Korea's Saehan Information Systems, the device was launched in March of 1998 at CeBIT, and went on sale in the Summer through Eiger Labs for $250. The player featured 32MB of flash memory (which could be upgraded to 64MB via mail-in scheme), connected to PCs via parallel port, and had a miniscule LCD for playback info -- but it laid the groundwork for the tech we have today. Following the MPMan's release, Rio unleashed its PMP300, which received a warmer reception and all-but eclipsed the F10's status as "first" amongst players, likely due to the company's well-known (and groundbreaking) legal battle against the RIAA. Still, first is first, so help keep the MPMan's rich history alive, and celebrate its ten-year anniversary this month with campfire songs and story-telling. Check out the archived read link of the original Eiger Labs site for a wild and wacky trip through time.